A host is the company that makes your
site available to all
of the people on the internet at any given
moment. A web host is a requirement
for having a site on the internet.
I’ll attempt to make sense
out of web hosting:
A web host has a computer that
is connected to the internet all the time
at a high speed. Your website files (the
pages/design) are stored on this computer;
the technical term for the computer that
holds your files is a ‘server’.
When someone types in your web address,
their computer sends a signal to their
internet provider that says ‘look
up so and so dot com and send it to me.
From there, their internet service provider
sends a signal to your ‘server’
asking it to send the page to this person’s
computer; the page gets sent to client
(person that typed in your address) and
loads on their screen. If your still unsure
about why everyone with a web site has
to have a web host then do some research
at your favorite search engine…type
in ‘how does web hosting work?’
or ‘web hosting FAQ’.
Now, you’ve got some ideas about
how web hosting works.
Let’s talk about domain names...
Domain Names
When someone types ‘www.yoursite.com’
in their web browser, their computer sends
a signal to their internet service provider
that asks how to find the web site that
is associated with ‘www.yoursite.com’.
From that point, the internet service
provider has a computer that looks up
the unique ‘IP address’ for
‘www.yoursite.com’ and directs
the person’s computer to the server
that ‘www.yoursite.com’ is
hosted on.
The previous paragraph should give you
the basic idea. There are other computers
(such as a DNS server) involved in finding
which unique IP address links to your
domain name.
How It All Works
A web site gets built; this means
that someone creates files that work with
standard internet browsing software like
explorer and Netscape. These files get
put on the server computer that your web
host rents to you. Your domain name is
linked up to your files on this server
computer. The server stays connected to
the internet at all times and at high
speed.
When your domain name gets typed into
a visitor’s web browser, this sends
a signal to the visitor’s internet
service provider; the provider’s
computers figure out how to send the correct
page back to the web browser. Your web
host sends your page back through the
visitor’s internet service provider
and the page loads onto your visitor’s
screen.
